


Should I Stay or Should I Go?

by For_the_love_of_fiction



Series: What's Meant to be Will Always Find a Way [1]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drunken Confessions, F/M, For both the characters and myself, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, Season 1, Tequila may have been involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 15:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20472971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/For_the_love_of_fiction/pseuds/For_the_love_of_fiction
Summary: Walking Backup leads to some interesting conversations.(Only minor implications of LoVe for this.  In my head)





	Should I Stay or Should I Go?

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during 1.2 Credit Where Credit's due.
> 
> Yesterday was my birthday and I decided to write up this little fic that's been rattling around in my head, and 'it's my birthday and I do what I want' is the best excuse to get things done.
> 
> And this started to be a fic going in one direction and halfway through the characters decided, "HA! I shun your attempts to do this, we shall get off topic and go another direction!" Hope you like it!

The moon lit up the beach as Veronica walked Backup down the sandy shore. She really hadn’t needed to take him all the way to Dog Beach when he had begged to go out, but she had used it as an excuse to go for a walk. The sound of the waves crashing helped to clear her mind, which was running on overdrive. The ticket that Lily had been issued burned a hole in her pocket, and all she had been thinking of for the last few hours was the look on Lily’s face as she drove, unaware of her fate. 

Backup barked, unhappy that Veronica had gotten lost in thought and forgotten about throwing the ball. She smiled at him, and threw it again, down the beach. 

He took off in a happy run, but suddenly veered off towards the dunes, barking excitedly. 

“Backup!” Veronica called, chasing after him. “Backup, come back!”

She rounded a dune, just in time to see Backup excitedly tackling Logan Echolls, who was sitting with an almost empty bottle of tequila. Backup rubbed his head on Logan’s chest, eager for attention. Logan let the pit shove him down into the sand and with his free hand, he rubbed the dog’s ears, almost cuddling him to his chest. Veronica stopped, not knowing exactly what to do. Her ‘well trained dog’ wasn’t listening, and she  _ really _ didn’t want to get into anything with Logan, especially after exposing his girlfriend as the two-timer that she was. 

She sighed and walked forward, bracing herself for the inevitable. “Backup! Come on.”

Backup just whimpered, and scooted closer to Logan, who didn’t even glance at Veronica. Her dog was now almost on top of Logan completely, his nose buried in Logan’s shoulder, and his body pressed along Logan’s chest. She couldn’t even grab Backup without getting too close, as Logan’s hand was now stroking along Backup’s head and neck, shielding her from the collar. 

She huffed, and sat down nearby, but not too close. “I’m sorry.” She wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for, but if asked, it was definitely for her dog’s behavior and not anything to do with her reveal of Caitlin’s activities. 

“He’s fine.” Logan’s voice was calm, with none of the vitriol that she had come to expect recently. “He’s the only one who loves me, he’s allowed to stay.” Some bitterness crept into his voice, but somehow she knew it wasn’t directed at her.

They stayed quiet for a moment, her watching the waves, and him absently stroking Backup while staring at the stars. 

She was slightly startled when he lifted up the bottle of tequila and squinted at it, the movement disrupting their quiet meditation. 

“What are you doing?” she asked cautiously. 

“Trying to decide if I’m drunk enough to talk while you’re here. Backup would make an excellent soundboard, but I don’t want him spilling all of my secrets to you.” There was less than a fourth left in the bottle. “So, Backup, what do you think? Will you keep secrets from your tiny blonde master?”

Backup actually made a small whining sound and Logan chuckled. “Alright, I knew you had my back.”

There were a few more moments of quiet. Veronica didn’t want to say anything that would make Logan turn against her for the moment, and presumably, Logan was gathering up courage to say whatever he needed to.

“Why have all of my girlfriends cheated on me?”

The question was so quiet and so unlike the Logan that Veronica had known recently, that she almost thought that she had imagined it. 

“Seriously, do I have a sign on my chest or something that says ‘sucker’ or ‘get your kicks elsewhere’?” His voice was getting stronger and more agitated, and he was very determinedly not looking in Veronica’s direction. “Lily, Jessica, Ashley, Caitlin. All of them cheated on me. Mostly publicly. Am I not enough?”

She was quiet. A part of her was afraid what would happen if she said anything, but his voice had broken at the end of his question, and she remembered their years of friendship before Lily’s death. That long forgotten friendship was bubbling to the surface, and Veronica could almost pretend that this was before the fighting and sniping, before Shelly’s party and the year of torment. 

“Look, Logan, I more than anyone know what a major jackass you can be,” she took a deep breath and continued, “but I also know how you treated Lily so much better than she treated you. That first year, she treated you like crap. I was always on her to treat you better, because she would throw you away for a fling or fleet week, or something completely stupid. And you always forgave her. I don’t know anything about Jessica or Ashley or Caitlin, but I do know that you were always there for Lily. Even when she didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t until around sophomore year that you started fighting fire with fire.” She let her words trail off, not sure what his reaction would be. She was surprised when his next words were hesitant. 

“Why’d you tell her?” There was a hardness to his voice, but underneath a bit of hurt. “Why’d you tell her about Yolonda? Nothing happened. And then she broke up with me. Even though she had done worse. And then I was gone when-” he cut himself off and lifted up the bottle and poured the rest of it down his throat, careful not to dislodge the dog still clinging to him. 

“I didn’t,” she said quietly, looking down at her feet. 

Logan scoffed loudly, and finally turned to look at her. “Bullshit, Veronica Mars. When she dumped me, she said that you told her about that kiss. Lil was a lot of things, but she wasn’t a liar.”

“I didn’t tell her, but I did confirm it when she asked me.” Veronica sighed and buried her hand in the sand, sifting it through her fingers and watching it blow away with the wind. “Madison Sinclaire called her from the party to tell her. Apparently Madison was too eager to wait. Madison did always like to kiss ass with whoever was queen bee. When I saw Lily the next day, the first words out of her mouth were, ‘is it true?’ I couldn’t lie to her, so I told her the truth. I did point out her behavior, but she was looking for an excuse. Any would have done. She wanted to be single for Fleet Week.”

The silence that followed that statement told Veronica that Logan knew she was correct, but didn’t want to believe or acknowledge it. 

“I loved Lily,” he finally said, “and Lily loved...guys.” He lifted up the bottle to eye the contents once again, but it was fully drained. “I’ve been blaming you,” he said, “for us breaking up, for me not being there when she…”

She didn’t know what to say to that. She knew that he blamed her for abandoning them, for siding with her father, but she didn’t know that he blamed her for their breakup. 

“I came back,” he confessed. “I showed up at the car wash.”

She turned sharply towards him, “I didn’t see you there.”

“I didn’t come over.” He was again looking at the stars, no longer avoiding her gaze, but not meeting her eyes either. His hand was lying on Backup’s collar, fingers idly scratching at the fur beneath. Veronica was quiet, not wanting to miss his confession, hoping to get information. “I just parked across the street and watched her. And this feeling came over me, you know, I don’t…I don’t know how to describe it but I just knew it was over. So I sat in my car and I wrote this note to her, explaining it. I left it in her car with this dumb shot glass that I had picked up in TJ. Went back to TJ to meet up with Beaver and Dick. Got completely smashed, woke up the next day to messages on my phone that I needed to come back.”

The gears were turning in Veronica’s head. Logan just admitted his alibi was on shaky ground, but he probably didn’t know about Lily’s time of death being off. She needed to tread carefully. 

“Did you go straight back to Mexico from the car wash?” 

“Yeah, all I could think about was just getting hammered.” Logan sighed again, then looked at her suspiciously. “Wait, you’re still looking into her death, aren’t you? God, what is with the Mars’ family? Do you really believe that Lily’s death was part of some great conspiracy? What the hell is wrong with you? Is that why you’re still here? Are you treating me like a suspect?”

“I’m here because my dog decided that you were a better pillow than his bed back home, and yes, Logan. Everyone is a suspect!” Her voice choked, and she tried to hold back tears. 

Logan sat up, Backup falling down into his lap, whining slightly. “What the hell is wrong with you, Veronica? What do you think Lily would make of you investigating all the people who loved her?”

“I loved Lily!” Veronica shouted, her tears finally falling. They fell silently as she gestured to herself. “I loved her, she was like my sister! Maybe if I didn’t I’d be able to drop this!”

They looked at each other for a moment. Veronica was trying to gauge Logan’s truthfulness. He had offered up the information, probably because of the tequila, but also probably because he was innocent. He was searching her gaze too, and she wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but apparently he found it, because he flopped back down onto the sand to Backup’s delight. 

“I found this today,” Veronica offered quietly, as a peace offering. She got the ticket out of her back pocket and held it out for him. He took it warily. “It’s a picture of Lily. She ran a red-light camera on the 3rd. Looks like she’s singing in the driver’s seat. It’s time stamped two hours after her…” she took a breath, “after her time of death.”

Logan opened the folded up paper and squinted at it with the coordination of a very drunk person. “So? It only proves that the coroner fucked up. I don’t know what this means.”

“It means that if the time of death is off, the only people who have alibis were my dad and I, and you if you went straight to Mexico. They probably have you on camera crossing over. Air-tight. That means that none of the Kanes… or my mom… have alibis that hold up.”

She waited with her breath held. Logan was probably going to rage at her. She was still looking into the Kanes, and he still had issues with that. Instead, he surprised her. He silently handed back the paper. 

“Look, I’m not in a place to argue with you tonight. I’m too tired. But you’re wrong, Veronica. The Kanes would never do something like this. Look elsewhere.” His voice was as firm as it could be, given his alcohol intake, but she let it slide. The cease fire that they had created was almost like old times, and she had gotten some vital information from it. 

“Why did you decide to talk to me tonight? It really wasn’t the tequila.” She was genuinely curious. He had given her ammo against him along with the news of his trip. 

His sigh was audible. 

_ He’s been doing a lot of that tonight _ , she thought wryly. 

“Because,” he started, then stopped. “Because you’ve never used any of your knowledge against me. I’ve thrown your mom and her drinking in your face, but you haven’t reciprocated.”

“Big words from the drunk,” she quipped, almost teasingly.

“Please. You know I’m smarter than I act. You also know about my mother. And other… things. Why don’t you ever come back at me with that?”

She drew a few shapes in the sand idly before answering. “Because a long time ago, we used to be friends. Anything I said that I wouldn’t tell, I’m not going to. I keep my promises.” She wasn’t sure that she wanted the conversation to go past that. They were treading dangerous territory, and she didn’t know what school would be like the next day. Or if he’d even remember most of this. If there was one thing that Veronica Mars was good at, it was running away before it got too deep, and she was worried that it had already gone past the point of no return.

Shoving the ticket back in her pocket, she fished out Backup’s leash. “Come on boy, it’s time to go home.” 

Backup looked at her with pleading puppy eyes. 

“Nope, I let you linger too long, time to go home.” 

As if he understood her, Backup slowly stood up, stretched out all four limbs separately, and then gave Logan a long wet kiss down his face. Veronica held back a chuckle at the look that crossed Logan’s face. He wiped a hand across his cheek, his sleeve soaking up most of the damage. She leaned forward and snapped the leash on the collar. 

They were halfway around the dune, and out of sight of Logan when she heard, “Bye Veronica.”

**Author's Note:**

> Soo there is a SMALL chance that I turn this into a AU/fix-it of S1. IF I do that, it would probably only be an episode at at time, because usually I don't get much time to write and I wouldn't want to leave it unfinished. Let me know what you think and if you'd like to see more. AU/fix-it fics are my favorite types, so it would make sense that my foray back into writing would include such things. 
> 
> I've never been good at self-correcting, so feedback is greatly appreciated, especially since I don't have a beta!


End file.
